Monday 06/April/2026 – 05:40 PM
Mikel Arteta, the club’s technical director, took refuge ArsenalHe resorted to unconventional training tricks that reached the point of strangeness, in an attempt to lift his team out of a state of mental decline after receiving two successive defeats that destroyed its dreams of achieving the historic quadruple, bringing to mind his own philosophy that always raises controversy in football circles.
Arteta’s strange training exercises are ridiculous
Reports and videos published by Sky Sports monitored the Gunners players undergoing an exceptional training session at the club’s training center in London. The players appeared in groups of four trying to move on the field while holding the ball between all of their heads without it falling, before moving on to a more complex exercise of holding pencils with their fingertips in partnership with their colleagues, and trying to pass the ball and move at the same time to raise levels of concentration and teamwork.
Football fans on social media platforms met these exercises with a wave of ridicule. One fan commented: “Do you want to win the Champions League by throwing pencils?”, while others described it as a desperate trick that could lead to technical disaster if the team’s path is not quickly corrected on the field grass.
Arteta has a record of unconventional methods, starting with hiring professional pickpockets to steal players’ phones and wallets during a group dinner to teach them vigilance, and playing Liverpool’s song You’ll Never Walk Alone over the loudspeakers to simulate the horror of Anfield, all the way to using electric lights inside the dressing rooms to symbolize energy, and talking about imitating “British fighter pilots” to learn the speed of communicating one word in fateful situations.
These training moves come at a time when Arteta feels tremendous pressure to end Arsenal’s 22-year drought for the English Premier League title, especially after the 2-1 loss to Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-finals, and the loss of the Carabao Cup title to Manchester City, and although the Gunners lead the Premier League by 9 points from City, the fans fear that the pressure has already begun to undermine the mentality of the young team in the final and decisive moments of the season.
The Gunners fans were shocked after losing to Southampton 2-1, and being eliminated from the FA Cup in the quarter-finals, before facing Sporting Lisbon in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.
